Russian Oven: King’s Vatrushka, a Russian-style cheesecake

If you want to liven up your Thanksgiving spread, try making King’s Vatrushka, a simple yet inventive pie of Russian origin.

Welcome to the first episode of the new video blog about Russian pastries!

King’s Vatrushka is a modern tribute to vatrushka, a traditional Eastern European pastry in the form of a dough ring and filled with quark or cottage cheese.

A solar symbol like bliny (thin Russian pancakes), vatrushka firmly established itself in classical Russian cuisine. Nowadays, this little bun lacks its former popularity and is often regarded as an old-fashioned provincial dish.

King’s Vatrushka is a version of this dish updated for the modern palate: a big pot pie with quark filling, which results in a tender and delicious desert.

In order to make a delicious King’s Vatrushka pie you will need:

300 grams flour

200 grams butter

200 grams sugar

500 grams quark or cottage cheese

2 tablespoons powdered sugar

3 eggs

And here we go:

1. Prepare the dough: sift the flour through a strainer, add cooled diced butter, pulverize the blend and add powdered sugar (we used one with natural vanilla).

2. Now to make the quark filling: beat 3 eggs while simultaneously adding sugar and then put in quark (preferabely 9% fat) and mix it all together.

3. Pour half of the dough into the baking tray. Even out the dough with a spoon. Pour the filling in and then place the rest of the dough on top.

4. Heat the oven to 180 C (356 F). Bake for 40 minutes.

5. Decorate with seasonal berries (we used gooseberries and cranberries).

6. Enjoy!

Russian oven is a new video series devoted to Russian pastries, featuring traditional age-old pies and cakes, inventive cookies and tarts of recent years, plus Soviet classics and much more. Stay tuned!